Classics 37 Midterm Checklist Important Dates: 2000-1100 B.C. Greek speakers enter Greece around 2000 B.C . They develop Mycenaean civilization named after their chief city Mycenae. 1600-1100 B.C. Mycenaean Age/ Bronze Age. Culturally heavily dependent on Minoans (from Crete) who had Linear A 1200 B.C. According to legend, the Greeks attack Troy. This war, which lasts 10 years, is called the Trojan War. 1100-750 B.C. Greek Dark Age: massive depopulation, loss of writing, building primarily in wood. By 900 there is renewed contact with the Near East and increased population. The alphabet is also adopted by the Greeks from the Phoenicians. 800-700 B.C. Homer composes the Iliad and Odyssey. 750-500 B.C. Archaic (Lyric) Age 700 B.C. Hesiod 700-550 B.C. Homeric Hymns 600 B.C. philosophers 500-323 B.C. Classical Age The Iliad • Mycenaean civilization : developed in the centuries after 2000 B.C, which is approximately when Greek-speaking people first arrived in the area that we now know as Greece. These Greek-speakers gradually established there a rich civilization dominated by a few powerful cities built around large, highly organized palaces. These palaces were fortified military strongholds and centers for international trade, in particular with the many islands located in the Aegean Sea. Was essentially destroyed in a series of natural disasters and political disruptions. • Minoan civilization : civilization that lived on Crete, the largest island. There was already a flourishing civilization by the time the Mycenaeans arrived in Greece. The Mycenaeans were heavily influenced by the Minoans. The Mycenaeans ultimately came to dominate the Minoans. From the Minoans the Mycenaeans gained a system of writing: a syllabary in which each symbol stands for a particular sound. • Linear A: the Minoan writing system • Linear B : the earliest Greek writing system. Archaeologists excavating all the mainland centers of Mycenae and Pylos have recovered examples of Linear B on clay tablets. They contain detailed accounts of a highly bureaucratic palace economy, inventories of grain or livestock and list of palace functionaries assigned to perform such specialized roles such as “bath-pourer)”. • Heinrich Schliemann and Troy : Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy in the late 19 th century. He followed the topographical details given in the Iliad . Through this discovery, Schliemann both vindicated the historical validity of Homer and helped to found the field of archaology.

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• Dorians : at the end of the Bronze Age a new group of Greek speakers emerged as the dominant people on the mainland, known as the Dorians. • Dark Age : period of time that invovled less material prosperity and less highly organized concentrations of political and military power that had been characteristic of the Mycenaean period. Known as the Dark Age. One result of the transition to the Dark Age was the writing fell out of use

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